SPRING HILL, FLORIDA -- Spring Hill, Florida Friday September 15, 2006
In trying to cancel my cellular phone service with Cingular so that I could obtain service with a carrier that actually provided quality service to the area in which I live, since Cingular did not work in my living room or any other place that I happened to be. I was told that I was still under contract even though I had made no changes in my contract or otherwise signed for new service from their company. I had started out with AT&T in February 2004 in Memphis, TN and when Cingular took over AT&T in early 2005 I was among those unhappy people force to be a part of a company locked into a contract (two years originally with one year left) that I did not choose and would not have chosen because of the bad word of mouth on Cingular! When I moved to Florida in March 2005, Cingular told me that AT&T no longer existed and that Cingular would be the only company that I could deal with... I was getting nowhere, and all I wanted to do was to change my phone # from the Memphis area to a local # in Spring Hill, after many hours on the phone with Cingular telling me that I should just keep the Memphis # even though I had become a Florida resident, they changed the #... to a Gainsville, Florida #... oh good a new long distance #, when I called to complain and at that time I didn’t know that it was a Gainsville #, they told me I should have told them I lived in Spring Hill and would need a Brooksville # (I'm supposed to know that?) I told them that it was their job to know the local #'s for my area and since they had my correct billing and mailing address it should have been easy. (where is their customer service, India?) Again I spent my time trying to correct their error. Today again I was on the phone wasting my time trying to correct their error again!! It was an error and they admitted it, but still would not give me their name or the name of their supervisor in case the problem does not get solved by the woman(Miss No Name) that assured me she would take care of it. With their track record I do not get that warm and fuzzy feeling that all is well between myself and Cingular. If you are thinking of opening an account with Cingular think long and hard, because they will be able to ruin the experience for you and you will feel that they are doing something unethical or are trying to in some way cheat you, their valuable customer without whom they would not be in business in the first place. Although I live in Spring Hill, Florida, this complaint could have come from any state. Cingular does not seem to descrimenate based on where you live, they give the same bad service to everyone.

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Breaking contract agreement

Posted by MrDave on 07/20/2006

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- I contacted Cingular customer service representatives by phone nearly a dozen times over the past six months trying to resolve the matter of the unpaid balance on my account, but to no avail.

I was never happy with their phone service as I experienced dropped calls and no bars on an almost daily basis. Most often my phone did not work at all on weekends when minutes were supposedly “free”. I’m appalled that an American corporation can use their weaknesses as an advertising ploy for being their strongest asset!

It got worse with the merger between Cingular and AT&T. I use an automated billpayer through my bank to submit payments. When the January statement was sent to me, I didn’t notice the account number had changed. I simply input the amount I owed into my billpayer tool and remitted payment like I always do.

In February I was surprised to see my next statement claimed I never paid January‘s bill and the amount owed was for two billing statements. I paid the new amount including the past due amount to avoid any penalty fees and planned to research and rectify the discrepancy later. I was moving into a new house in March and had already packed most of my belongings into boxes. In March, I received the next bill and it stated I was three months behind. Remembering the February statement and knowing I remitted a double payment then, I paid only the current month’s fee. At this time I was in the process of moving and too busy to deal with that.

At the end of March we received a notice in the mail that our service with Cingular has been terminated. Verizon had not hooked up our new home phone yet. We were in our new house with a newborn baby trying to coordinate and switch over all of our utilities and Cingular turned off our only phone service, our only line to the outside world. Inconveniently, it was terminated at a time when we needed it most! My only option was to open a new account with a different cell phone service.

It was only later that I discovered my payments were going to the old AT&T account and not the new Cingular account. When I called customer service, the young lady I spoke to knew right away what had happened because she so had many other customers call with the same error. Many other people who use a bill paying service were still remitting payment to the old AT&T account not knowing that their account number had changed. I was never advised of that change, and apparently neither were many others. She was able to transfer the paid funds over to the proper account. But there was a positive balance on the account now because I made a double payment in February. She apologized for the inconvenience and told me to expect a refund check within 30 days.

Four months later I still have not received my refund and I am being billed for breaking contract, when in fact it was Cingular who terminated my account for not paying my bills when I had been paying them all along!

I have literally spent hours on the phone with Cingular desperately pleading my case and seeking resolution but have gotten nowhere. They maintain that I owe them a contract termination fee of $150 whether I broke the contract or they end the service, no matter what the reason.

I strongly urge anyone who has reached the end of their contract to switch to another cell phone service provider. I would also recommend anyone who has a legitimate complaint to report Cingular to the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Complaints at this web address http://www.ftc.gov/ by clicking on the “File a Complaint” tab. Also, letters of complaint can be sent to the Better Business Bureau at http://odr.bbb.org/.

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Ongoing Billing & Usage Problems

Posted by icunow on 06/20/2006

ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- This complaint involves my two wireless numbers. This includes my bill from 04/27/06-05/26/06 and my current bill 05/27/06 through today. I am being charged for Mobile to Mobile minutes that are supposed to be included free on my family plan. I am in TX and my husband is working in GA. When my husband and I talk mobile to mobile, my number list the call as a mobile to mobile call and no charge is added, but my husband's number is being listed as a regular call and his minutes are deducted from our 1400 anytime minutes, at a daytime peak time rate. I have called Cingular 6 different times and a supervisor finally adjusted my bill for last month and deducted $247.78 overage charges and added 1000 rollover minutes to this month, in case we go over. We have gone over as of today, 119 minutes. I have checked this month's minutes and I am still being charged for mobile to mobile minutes. So far, Cingular has charged us over 270 minutes, that should be mobile to mobile minutes and free. I have tried all the steps Cingular has told me to do, to solve the problem on my end, but it does not work.

Update: We both have unlimited mobile to mobile minutes and we verified we are both on the Cingular Towers (Network) when we talk. We are finding out now that my husband is being billed for roaming charges, instead of receiving free roaming charges, like Cingular advertises.

I have finally found where the problem lies. My husband is out of town and his follow me calls are listed twice on the bill. One time the follow me call is listed Dallas time and we are not charged, but then the called is listed again at Atlanta time at a daytime rate and we are being charged for those minutes.

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Responsiveness to Customer Complaints

Posted by Collins on 03/22/2006

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA -- Over the past three months, I've experienced intermittent and frequently unusable cellular service, lack of carrier/signal, dropped calls, lack of a two-way connection (one party can hear/talk, the other only hears dead space)

It’s not always convenient to call customer service, especially since it’s no longer as convenient, like it was with Suncom's 611 service. The lack of convenience means I can't complain as much. Must mean complaints are down for the company :-)

The last two months, I could not even maintain the connection from my cell phone to customer service without dropping the call. Another indication that customer complaints are down :-)

This web site has been an awesome find for me. I reviewed your complaints and based on all that I found; I have successfully minimized the impact of Cingular's lack of service and benefited from my final call to their Customer Service.

CINGULAR: Well Mr. Smith, we can get you on to a new phone at no charge. This will eliminate all these unfortunate problems you have experienced, and we can do this at no charge to you.

ME: .... (The devil is in the details) I am not interested in either a new plan or a new contract!

CINGULAR: Well you would have to get on a new rate plan for us to upgrade your service.

ME: I am not interested in a new plan. Would you look at paragraph 1C of the Cingular Terms & Conditions Agreement? It states that my service is available to my phone within the operating range of the Suncom system. This is not true. There is no service quality within your service area for customers on the former TDMA network. I would like to find out how I might cancel my service while avoiding the Early Termination Fee.

CINGULAR: If you will agree to remain on the service through the end of your agreement, I will credit the service fees for each month through the end of this agreement.

With a little more conversation, I accepted this offer as an easier approach to that of putting up a fight. I think maybe Cingular may have been reading some of these posts also.

Good luck to any of you who take this approach. Through my own research, I've concluded that Pay as you go plans are the way to go. Watch out though. The providers are equally as tricky in this area also. The top three plans I found were through Net10, TMobile and TracFone. In my area, TMobile has the best all around offer. For those who purchase time in blocks of $100, the minutes cost $0.10 each and do not expire for one year. There do not appear to be any other hidden fees.

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Find a way out of your contract

Posted by jen2326 on 03/20/2006

STERLING, VIRGINIA -- I was a cingular customer for over 10 years--largely because my phone usually died before the 2 year period ended, so I had to keep getting a new contract. Recently I learned two very expensive lessons about how Cingular manages their contracts. 1) Several years ago, I added a second phone to the account. I learned when trying to cancel the account this year that early termination fee (of $150) is PER PHONE. Apparently each phone has its own contract, though I have never signed more than one piece of paper. 2) I had a phone stolen from my car in December and found Cingular to be extremely unhelpful. First, they told me that there was nothing they could do for me (I could have course buy a new phone, but to get a new phone number I'd have to get a new contract). Then they said that if I just cancelled the phone that had been stolen, I would have to pay the full (2 phone) monthly fee anyway and would have to pay the $150 early termination fee, for the phone that I NO LONGER HAD. As I recently failed in my final attempt to have this resolved, I thought I would pass along the supervisor's statement to me. "With all due respect, that stolen phone was still under contract." Keep in mind that I had been a faithful customer for well over 10 years... When the phone was stolen, all I wanted them to do was convert it to single phone account without a fee, but that was not something they were willing to do. I was, and remain, very disappointed.

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DO NOT USE CINGULAR WIRELESS

Posted by Tonie on 02/27/2006

SHREVEPORT, LOUISIANA -- I was charged over 2000 dollars when my husbands phone was stolen while he was overseas serving in Afghanistan. I called Cingular when my husband told me that he could not find his cell phone. The customer rep said that they could not do anything because they cannot suspend service if the phone is outside of the United States and that any calls that are made on the phone would have to be paid for by us. I have been fighting with their billing department for a year. Every month we are charged for services that we do not have. I am at my wits end.
I called this afternoon and the resolutions department is horrible. David Carter called me a liar 4 times and accused my husband of making all those calls himself and not wanting to tell me about them so he pretended his phone was stolen. Then his supervisor screamed at me and talked to me like a child, when I asked her if she treated all service members and their families this way she said I DO NOT CARE ABOUT SERVICE MEN OR THEIR FAMILIES and hung up on me.

I have contacted the Better Business Bureau, the FCC, the State Attorney General, as well as Cingular Wireless's CEO, and as of 1 hour ago I have contacted the media. Including but not limited to Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, local news channels, local news papers, and many other media outlets. If the situation is still not resolved then I will be sure to find the millions and millions of other Cingular customers who are screwed and welcome them the join me in filing a lawsuit against Cingular. I already have a lawyer in place waiting for the word. Anyone else who has had a similar problem with the rudeness and ignorance of Cingular Wireless please contact me at Tonieb04@aol.com

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Service Issues

Posted by CPRSAM on 02/20/2006

BLACKLICK, OHIO -- I had Cingular as a provider until I could not put up with there so called adequate service.

I called there customer service representatives several times. I played there games for couple of months of turning the phone off and back on having upgrades sent to me and still no decent reception. Finally I switched back to my old provider I might add I did not have to go through all the above since I ported my number back on October 17th 2005.

I had written to the BBB, FCC and the Ohio Attorney General. Cingular's response was that they give adequate service and Cingular does not guarantee service at all times and in all places per their correspondences to all the above agencies.

Advise to anyone if you get a new provider and if you are having any service issues most providers will give you 30 days which you can terminate or cancel your contract. This lesson cost me $450.00 to terminate three phones. Do not be patient like I was it will not get better. I do not know what I was thinking I really thought we could solve the problem.

This is no doubt a very crooked industry. It is big business. They can make their own rules and looks as though they can take advantage of the consumer with blessings of all the above agencies.

CINGULAR should get an award for the most dropped calls possible. When I had them as a provider I would have a dropped call couple times a day. With my new provider I get a dropped call once or twice in a month. Usually when I am talking to someone using Cingular, What a surprise!

Cingular should be forced to change there slogan from Raising the Bar to Raising the Bar for Some.
If we can not get them on their inadequate service maybe we could call them on their false advertisement.

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Please stay away from Cingular

Posted by mayreee on 02/15/2006

VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA -- What happened with Cingular isâ¦ I bought that BlackBerry and the lady told me she would put it on my bill. I call back for 4 days to get a tracking number and they kept saying we donât have it yet. Sooo I decide to pay my bill $450.00 in advance because I know I am going to get charged for the blackberry.
I call back again to get my tracking number and the lady told me my credit card declined. I told her they told me there were putting it on my bill SO THEY TRIED TO CHARGED MY CREDIT CARD ON FILE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Luckily that was my Capital One card I canceled about a month ago and if it was my check card I would have been PISSED.
Soooo I get over it and Iâm like I would like to order a blackberry. She told me I couldnât have it at that price without signing a new contract. I told the lady that is the price the lady quoted me and she knew I wasnât renewing my contact and I already have one. I said **** it, not in those words, and told her to charge me full price.
She then said I would have to give her my credit card number. IâM LIKE ***** I HAVE A $450.00 CREDIT ON MY BILL. She then says that she could not take it off of my bill. I asked to speak to a manager and she comes back 3 times, after putting me on hold 10 minutes each time, and says that she has a new idea. I still demanded to talk to a manager.
One finally comes on the phone and he tries to resolve it and makes these promises that in the end were not kept. Such as renewing my unlimited minutes for another 2 years and I would get the cheap phone price. So they decided they would credit my card backâ¦ NOW I HAVE TO WAIT 7 DAYS TO GET MY MONEY BACK.
I had more money from selling stuff on eBay so I decide to order the blackberry still. I call to order and they TELL ME I CANNOT HAVE THE BLACKBERRY ON MY UNLIMITED MINUTES PLAN. I talk to two more rude *** managers and like 100 customer service reps who have no clue how to do their job.
I then call my local Cingular (they are a lot better and know about former SunCom customers). I asked them if it was possible to keep my plan and have a blackberry data plan. They said yes and they have plenty of people that have it the way I want my account. The only thing is they didnât have any blackberry 8700c in stock and they didnât know when they were getting any.
I finally gave up and got a T-Mobile sidekick. THE END!
Cingular has the worst customer service ever. When I first signed up with them my bill was over $1,000.00 a month for 6 months until their dumb ***** found out how to fix it. They make me sick.

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Being threatened for bills from 3 years ago

Posted by Marlen Drew on 02/06/2006

DALLAS, TEXAS -- I had Cingular Wireless about three years ago. I only had the account for a short time (about 4 months.) During that time, they charged me outrageous billings ($300-$400 each) on a $59.99/month plan. If 15 people had been on my phone I might understand these crazy charges, but it was JUST ME and there was just no way that I, by myself, made $400 dollars worth of phone calls in one month, let alone every month for three months. Of course, the plan that I had done not 'allow' Cingular Wireless to provide me with a "detail" of these inane bills...but if I wanted one, Cingular Wireless wanted to charge me $5.00 EVERY TIME I NEEDED A DETAILED BILLING. In other words, they could not prove that I was making these calls, and yet when I asked them to, they still wanted to charge me MORE money. I finally had to break down and pay the freakin' $5.00 to get MY OWN BILL. When I got it, it was like 40 pages long...NOT ONE OF THESE CALLS WERE MINE. They obviously had my # confused with someone else's. When I called them back to complain and prove that I did not make any of the calls, I finally got a hold of one of their agents that looked at the account, and said, "Oh I see that we have made a terrible mistake. We are going to send you a refund of $209.34 because that is how much you overpaid for two months' worth of errors." I said thank you very much and hung up. Miraculously, the check for my refund, did finally come. However in the meantime, Cingular Wireless CONTINUED to charge me erroneously, for two more months. I called them to tell them I refused to pay the bills until they provided me with detail at NO CHARGE since I had already PROVEN that they were screwing up my account! Did they ever send me the detailed billings? Well, here's what they did. They sent me detailed billings of the FIRST TWO MONTHS that they had ALREADY REFUNDED ME FOR. Over and over and over. Like three times! Every time I got the same bills over and over, I kept calling them and explaining to them that they were sending the WRONG BILLS, and the customer service (haha) reps always said something like, "Well if you want the RIGHT ones, we'll STILL have to charge you $5.00 EACH." I never paid them another dime and got service with another company within a week. I threw the phone away (literally) and wrote Cingular a letter stating that until they could prove that these continued errors were theirs, they would not get another dime of my money and the phone was gone, the account closed. Well of course in the manner of Cingular that we've all become accustomed to, Cingular continued to bill me for months, and THEN tacked on a cancellation fee on top of all the other erroneous charges. They continue to send me threatening letters stating that they are going to take me to court. Well BRING IT! I still have a copy of my REFUND CHECK from 2003 from you FREAKS!

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From AT&T to Cingular

Posted by Mike M on 12/14/2005

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS -- My problem started over a year ago, but I was unaware of it. Three month ago I had a problem with my internet service (SBC). At the end of the call I was told if I move my cell phone bill to the SBC billing I can save $5.00. So I told the rep to proceed. After two months had gone by, I called to see why my billing was not moved. I was then informed that I am still under the AT&T network. Over a year ago I received a letter to switch to Cingular Network, I responded, and got a new phone, moved all of my phone numbers to the new phone. Although I did everything I was told to do, I was not moved to Cingular. The reps I spoke to stated I should have known this. Why would I know this when my bill comes in as Cingular, and when I turn my phone on it reads Cingular. The reps even told me I was lying about the letter I received a year ago regarding that I had to change from AT&T to Cingular. Now I have to get another phone to change over completely. When I was on the phone with a rep, the conversation was going nowhere, I asked for a supervisor, only to be given to another rep who stated they were a supervisor. I was promised everything I wanted. When I was transferred, I was then told the person I was talking to did not have the authority to promise anything. I could not get any satisfaction until I came across your web site with the Cingular corporate phone number. I was told by them they can switch me over, I just had to cancel my account, get a new contract, and phone, and call back to have my account put back to a year contract. I was not promised anything more, no credit for my inconvenience for being lied to, or tricked a year ago. Over this weekend my phone would not work at all, so I went to the store, got the new account. The rep was nice, but ended up keeping my old phone which I wanted. When I called back he stated my old phone would be given to a woman shelter. If my phone was broke, how could they give it to a woman in dire need. Today I called the normal customer service area to ask for the corporate phone number, they would not give it out. In fact the first rep I spoke to hung up on me. The second rep did understand and stated she would have a manager call me back. The manager did call me back within two hours only to tell me he could not give out the corporte number. I then told him about this web site filled with compliants. He told me I would have to come back to this web site to get the phone number, which I did. Lucky for me I kept your web site listed in the bookmark section of my PC. Cingular has very bad service, and will be moving my account over to another carrier next year. Most likely to Verizon, unless I see complaints listed on this site about them. Thank you for having the corporate number listed for Cingular, otherwise I would still be in the dark. Is there any compaines out there that help their customers anymore, or are the all out the make a buck.